


Hunger in Torn Elkandu

by Serriya (Keolah)



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Warhammer 40.000
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Cannibalism, Elves, Gen, Humanoid Animals, Original Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-02
Updated: 2006-12-02
Packaged: 2017-11-14 06:00:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/512074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keolah/pseuds/Serriya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Things are changing in Torn Elkandu, and not for the better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hunger in Torn Elkandu

Silver woke to the sounds of commotion somewhere outside and stood slowly, rubbing his head from a hangover. He stumbled out onto the deck overlooking the streets and saw people shouting, rioting, in chaos. Even the desperate strains of Pyroluminescence echoing across Torn Elkandu could not keep them calm and under control. 

Frowning in confusion and fearing the worst, Silver darted down the stairs onto the street level and shortly located Kirlin, who was tending to an injured centaur. "Kirlin! What in the Abyss is going on here?" 

The white-robed cleric glanced up at him and said, "I'm not sure, Silver. I think they're just hungry." 

"Hungry?" Silver repeated incredulously. "How is that possible? They're Elkandu!" 

"I'm not sure," Kirlin said, finishing up the healing work and patting the centaur and letting him go. "They started commenting about it a few hours ago and heading for the replicators." 

"That's really weird," Silver commented, frowning deeply. "Some sort of curse or something? Apparently the two of us at least weren't affected, though, although we're rather stronger than the average Elkandu. So what's the problem, though? Shouldn't the replicators have been able to keep up with the demand?" 

"To an extent," Kirlin replied, heading down along the street toward the Nexus to try to deal with as many minor injuries as she could. "But they're all panicked and confused. I don't think they quite know what to make of it all." 

Down in the Nexus plaza, they found a gut-wrenching sight. At least one elf had been slaughtered and roasted by a pyromancer, and the bits of elf meat were being distributed and hungrily devoured by a small crowd. A pair of storm demons, one grayish blue and one bluish gray, sat perched atop a nearby building, laughing merrily and nibbling on bloody elf flesh. It was not such a leap of guesswork to presume that the two of them may have been responsible for spurring the crowd to its sudden spree of cannibalism. 

"What in the Abyss are you doing?" Silver demanded of the crowd. 

"It's food," replied one unapologetic nali, splatters of blood staining his black-and-white striped fur. "Want some?" 

"This ridiculous," Silver replied in exasperation. 

"Yeah, not enough barbecue sauce," commented one of the storm demons. 

"Tom! Jerry!" Kirlin snapped at them. "Did I not tell you two to behave the last time you ran amuck and wrecked havoc through Torn Elkandu?" 

"What?" replied Tom innocently, flaring out his wings defensively. "We are perfectly behaving! People were hungry, after all, so we decided to give them what they wanted so that they would stop rioting. We are kind and benevolent! What else would you have had us do? Stand by quietly while the city tore itself apart?" 

"Yeah, about as kind and benevolent as a horde of bloodthirsty lawyers," Kirlin replied dryly. "Shoo, the both of you, before I shove starfire up your asses. And don't let me hear about any crap like this again." 

"Bah, angels are no fun. Come on, Tom, let's blow this joint," Jerry muttered, taking to flight with Tom and flying off away from the Nexus. With the demons gone, Kirlin sighed and tried to untangle the mess in the Nexus plaza with Silver's help and heal who she could, although trying to get the charred flesh away from people only resulted in an angry, aggressive reaction from the hungry mages. Finally, Silver and Kirlin were forced to withdraw lest they end up having to resort to violence. 

"What the Abyss are we going to do about this?" Silver muttered irritably as they made their way toward the School of Thought. 

"I have _no_ idea," Kirlin admitted with a sigh. "If it isn't one thing it's another. If things weren't bad enough, the demons running around manage to make things even worse. I just hope they mind their own business and keep their noses out of everything." 

"Good luck wishing for that," Silver replied, smirking. "Maybe Ed will have some idea what might be done about this all." 

As it would appear, some people around the school had thought that the small, brown, humanoid rabbit looked good enough to eat, and were chasing Edminster around the grounds. Ed was, however, much too quick for them, and even when they thought that they might finally have caught him, he would hop straight through a wall, into the floor, or bounce up nonchalantly to the roof. He appeared to be far more amused by their antics than concerned about them. Silver rolled his eyes and strode forward, dispersing the crowd with a warning blast of lightning into the air. The hungry mages decided to go find something easier to catch. 

The four-foot-tall brown rabbit wearing a suit approached Silver and Kirlin and said, "This is totally gnarly, dude and dudette. I am uncertain as to the activities which had precipated this happenin' stuff." 

"I don't really care what caused it right now," Silver said. "I just want to get things under control, especially around the Nexus area for the sake of safe transportation. This is _insane_. It seems to be only affecting the lesser mages and not the High Elkandu, however. You haven't been affected by it, correct?" 

"Negative, boss," Edminster replied. "I'm peachy keen and unaffected by the mysterious anomalous occurrences thus far." 

"Alright," Silver said. "Let's grab Sidan and see if we can't get the Nexus area under control, then. We should be able to manage that much between us at least." 

The gnome woman was found not far off, and the four of them headed back toward the Nexus again. Bones, blood, and entrails had been scattered about the plaza, and some people were still sitting nearby munching on bloody, half-cooked meat. Things had settled down a bit in the immediate vicinity with the demons having moved on, at least. It took a bit of doing to break up the roiling crowds and send off the rabid cannibals elsewhere, but between the four of them they managed to bring some semblance of order to the Nexus again. 

Some hours later, after holding the Nexus themselves during that time and keeping it safe for travellers, the chaos around Torn Elkandu shifted to an entirely different focus. "They're... tired?" Kirlin observed with some puzzlement. None of the four of them showed any sign of being hungry or sleepy yet. 

"This just keeps getting weirder," Silver commented, watching the mages of various species wander off to try to find places to sleep, and start up tired riots all over again because there weren't enough beds or rooms available for them. Torn Elkandu had never been designed to sustain a high population of people requiring food and sleep. 

Over the months to come, they slowly came to realize that the problems and changes were far more wide-reaching than they had thought at first. Most places weren't quite as heavily hit due to the fact that they sported a mix of mages and mensch, and Torn Elkandu slowly adjusted itself to the differences as it always did. 

However, that was before they realized something was up with the Nexus. They didn't really notice at first, but little by little, reports came in that it seemed to be growing more difficult to use. 

"I reckon at the current rate of decay of the magical beacon," Edminster commented, "I estimate that this time next year, it'll be impossible to use the Nexus unaided at all, dudes." 

Silver paced nervously and sighed. "What are we going to do about this? This would destroy interplanar travel and completely relegate anyone with any Motion ability to the state of being a chauffeur again." 

"Mayhaps the El'dari might be able to help with the gnarly problem," Edminster suggested. "It's their techno-magic-gizmo, after all." 

"Right," Silver murmured. "Maybe they know something we don't. Maybe they could tell us what's wrong with it and how to fix it. I'll go see about having a little chat with them." 

Silver certainly couldn't argue with what the Eldar were doing here on Lezaria, even if he still wasn't quite sure what the difference was between them, the El'dari, and the elves. They all may as well be distant cousins as far as he was concerned. He proceeded to take a trip over to Eldamar to have a lengthy discussion with them involving the technology behind the Nexus, and some various related technologies such as the 'Warp Gates' or whatever it was that they used. They were not, however, certain as to the cause behind the recent problems the Nexus was having of late. 

"Well," Silver said to Edminster once he returned to Torn Elkandu. "They didn't know what was causing the problems, but they did offer a possible alternative. We could set up a network of these teleportation gate things around every major city on the most-visited worlds and perhaps one on each world for the less-visited ones. They could act as something of a focus to more easily tap into the Nexus's power and augment it with their own in order to allow for teleportation to and from the Nexus even if someone could not pick up on the beacon themselves." 

"A viable enough alternate solution, man," Edminster commented as he mused it over. "Let's get the gnarly thingamajigs set up before the Nexus goes kaput. It'll take months to get 'em all in place, anyhow." 

"There's also another advantage to such a system even if we manage to find a way to fix the Nexus at some point, too," Silver added. "We could set them up to be able to take people directly to another teleporter without having to come to the Nexus first. That would considerably ease off on traffic to and from the Nexus, which has been getting to be a serious problem of late due to the spread of knowledge of the Interdimensional Bridge."


End file.
